Dravid, Jayawardene in ICC cricket committee

Rahul Dravid, the former India captain, and Mahela Jayawardene, the former Sri Lanka captain, have been appointed to ICC cricket committee for the next three years.

Dravid, along with Tim May, the former chief executive of the Ferderation of International Cricketers' Association, were chosen by current Test captains to represent the interests of the current players. They replaced Kumar Sangakkara and former India legspinner L Sivaramakrishnan, whose tenures had lapsed. Jayawardene was picked to do the same role with respect to past players. He took over from Mark Taylor.

Anil Kumble was re-elected the chairman for another three-year term and umpire Richard Kettleborough replaced the retired Steve Davis as the umpires' representative. Kettleborough has won the ICC's Umpire-of-the-Year award thrice.

Dravid and Jayawardene played all three forms of cricket for over a decade, scoring more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs. Since retirement, they have both had success as commentators and were sought after as coaches. Dravid is in charge of the India Under-19 and A teams while Jayawardene had a stint with England as batting consultant.

Geoff Allardice, who also administers the ICC Cricket Committee meeting, said "I want to thank Mark Taylor, Kumar Sangakkara, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Steve Davis for their significant contribution to this committee.

"I welcome Rahul Dravid, Mahela Jayawardena, Tim May and Richard Kettleborough, and I am confident that these highly credentialed individuals will carry on the good work of their predecessors to make the sport even more competitive and attractive."

The cricket committee has the authority to recommend changes to the rules by which the game is played. The implementation of these changes depends on the ICC board ratifying them.

A batting-friendly World Cup in 2015 that was played under the rule that only four fielders were allowed on the boundary after the 40th over. The cricket committee's meeting that followed in May proposed the abolishing of the bowling Powerplay and allowance for an extra fielder outside the circle for the final 10 overs. The ICC put the changes into practice a month later.

The next meeting of the cricket committee is scheduled for May 31 and June 1 at Lord's, three weeks before the ICC annual conference in Edinburgh.

The ICC cricket committee: Anil Kumble, chairman; Shashank Manohar and David Richardson, Ex-officio; Andrew Strauss and Mahela Jaywardene, past player representatives; Rahul Dravid and Tim May, current player representatives; Darren Lehmann, Full Member coach representative; Kevin O'Brien, Associate representative; Clare Connor, Women's cricket representative; NZC CEO David White, Full Member representative; Ravi Shastri, Media representative; Richard Kettleborough, Umpires representative; Ranjan Madugalle, Referees' representative; John Stephenson, MCC Head of Cricket.